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I mentioned the other day I’d been thinking a lot about hunger in America. What I’ve been forced to realize lately is that even being able to think about hunger is a hallmark of my own position of privilege.

I’m going to make a confession here: I hate the word privilege. Just hearing that word makes my defenses go up.

When someone says I’m privileged, I think about all the ways my life hasn’t been easy. My dad lost a good job when I was about 10, and we were really poor for a few years after that. Poor to the point of needing help from our church and our family members to get by and not lose our house.

Oh, what’s that? Yes, we had our own house. It was a cheap little 3-bedroom National, but it was ours. And our car died every time Mom or Dad stopped at a light or turned a corner, so they could throw it in neutral, restart it, and shift back to drive without missing a beat. But we owned a car. Oh, did I mention my mom stayed at home with me until my dad lost his job?

So not only were we poor, but we were in a way better position than thousands or even millions of Americans, let alone people all around the world. I learned a lot from being poor. The Christmas right after my dad lost his job is one of the best in my memory, and it included things he salvaged from a Dumpster and refurbished. But it showed what a huge difference love makes.

So back to my point. I hate the word privilege. Probably because, as much as I hate admitting it, the word applies to me.

Let me share a few embarrassing but pointed examples of how my privilege is affecting how I think about the problem of hunger in America:

I am afraid to meet hungry people. It embarrasses me that my jeans cost me $80 a pair when I think about going to the local food pantry and facing people who can’t afford food. I’m afraid I will come across as condescending when all I want is to make a difference in people’s lives. So what do I do? Instead of going down and giving my time (which I have plenty of these days), I donate food and used clothes and things I don’t want any more.

I am learning about hunger in America by watching movies and reading books. How privileged is that? Yes, there were times in my life that my family wasn’t sure where our next few meals were coming from, but I was young, and children are resilient. I’m not facing hunger myself on a daily basis. I’m reading books like Red Letter Revolution and Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. I’m watching A Place at the Table and getting outraged from my comfortable theater seating. I’m not looking hunger in the face.

I am trying to fight hunger by talking about it. No, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with talking about a problem. You can’t find solutions without discourse and dialogue. But you also can’t build a house by talking about building it. Sure, you have to draw up a blueprint and assemble your supplies, but sooner or later you have to pick up a hammer and nail some boards together. I am not out there feeding people. It’s not like hunger is a new issue for me. Back in November I was thinking about volunteering at some of the service dinners that happen in Indianapolis over the holiday season. Yet here I am, still reading and researching and talking, talking, talking.

I act like posting things on Facebook is good enough. Sure, it’s fine to educate my friends on Facebook about the problem of hunger. But I’m not sure if I’m really changing any minds out there. My Republican friends are getting pissed off because I support entitlement programs and want to make people dependent. My Democrat friends are probably thinking it’s nice I”m finally with the program. And what’s worst, my Christian friends don’t seem to give a shit. I feel like a voice crying out in the wilderness. Posting something on Facebook to try to shock my friends into caring is great and all, but it’s making me feel frustrated by their lack of caring while allowing me to feel smug like I’ve accomplished something. And that just makes me disgusted with myself when I think about it.

I’m a smart person. But it isn’t enough to know there’s a problem. You have to actually do something. And I haven’t made that connect yet. So here’s my commitment, both to myself and to you guys:

I am going to finish reading Red Letter Christians and Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Easter, and then I am going to get off my butt and do something. I’ll go to the Caring Center and ask if I can volunteer. I’ll get to meet hungry people. I‘ll find out if there’s a way I can turn my own particular skill set to making a difference in people’s daily lives.

What about you guys? Are there ways you fight privilege in our own lives? Are you already out there doing something about hunger? What do you think I should do?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about hunger and poverty. Of course, over the past year I have been growing more liberal in my politics, so thinking about hunger and poverty, at least as a part of the whole, isn’t a new thing for me. But the week before last I got an email from Panera that kicked this off again.

See, I have a Panera card. You know, the kind you swipe and get rewards after so many purchases and free pastries on your birthday. And because I have a Panera card, the corporation invited me to a free screening of a powerful movie called A Place at the Table. I know Panera is trying to fight food insecurity through their pay-what-you-can cafes. I don’t know much more about Panera, if they pay a living wage and such. I need to learn more. But I respect that they’ve started doing something, because every movement needs a first step.

What Panera did last week was open my eyes.

I knew people in America were hungry. I knew that 1 in 6 people are living with food insecurity–they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. I read a statistic yesterday that says 8.3 million seniors go to bed hungry each night.

What is going on in America? Why do we have such hungry people, when obesity is a national epidemic and there is plenty of food to go around?

Well, according to A Place at the Table, a lot of it comes down to two things: corporate greed, and the government’s unwillingness to do something about the problem.

Corporations continue pushing out foods that are loaded with non-nutritious calories. Corporate farms suck up most of the government subsidies on corn, soybeans, and wheat, while family farms and orchards are left out. The government gives public schools a tiny amount of money to spend on school lunches, where far too many children are eating the only meal they get each day; as a result, school lunches aren’t as nutritious as they should be. Did you know the average food stamp allotment is $3 per day? How well can you eat on that? Junk food is cheaper than healthful food, and if you only have $3 to spend, you’re probably going to go for the cheapest things around, right?

The actor Jeff Bridges was involved in A Place at the Table, and at one point he says that if another nation was doing this to our children, we would go to war. But we’re doing it to ourselves. That’s insane.

So viewing the movie got me thinking about all this. As the movie points out, there are thousands of private food charities attempting to fill the gap, and yet the hunger problem is worse than ever. Private charities aren’t the solution. Not that I think the government is a great solution either, considering they can’t even come to an agreement about the budget, but something has to be done.

I posted something to this effect on Facebook the other day, and one of my Christian Republican friends pointed out that too much government assistance creates dependency. I disagree with her for a lot of reasons, and I also believe that a well-designed assistance program would be aimed at helping people get on their feet. But that’s a post for another day.

The thing is, I’m not convinced that we need to be worried about dependency right now. I think we need to prioritize things differently. It’s like triage. If a physician has a patient bleeding to death from a traumatic leg wound, does she worry about making the patient dependent on a wheelchair, or does she apply a tourniquet and amputate the leg? Let’s feed hungry people first, and worry about dependency when we’re sure no one has gone to bed hungry tonight.

Along with watching A Place at the Table, I’ve also been reading a couple of really great books. I started with Speaking of Jesus by Carl Medearis, and this week I began reading Red Letter Revolution by Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne.

What I’ve taken away so far is a lot of jumbled emotions and a strong feeling of conviction. I have to change how I’m living my life. I have to encourage other Christians to change how they’re living their lives. I have to reach out to people who have been hurt and judged and condemned and abused by people in the name of Christianity. I have to stop trying to defend all the atrocities committed by Christians and start trying to follow Jesus.

The subtitle of Medearis’ book is “The Art of Non-Evangelism”, but I would posit that the book is about so much more than evangelizing people (or not evangelizing them, actually). It’s about how Christians look at theology and rules and are-you-a-believer-or-not. It’s about how Christians forget to look at Jesus.

What would Jesus do? Well, I can tell you what He did. He fed the five thousand. He healed the sick. He condemned the religious leaders who wanted to stone the adulterous woman, rather than condemning the adulterous woman. He told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor. He told us not to lay up treasures on earth.

She asked for a status update on my relationship. I told her I had decided I was single at heart and needed to tell him that. She asked, “What happened?” I told her honestly that nothing had happened, I had just realized I don’t like romantic relationships.

Cue radio silence.

Now this is just speculation, but I think she was staring at her phone with a complete lack of response. Lost for words, unable to think of how to respond to me. Of course, she might have been sitting there cussing me out in her head, or throwing her hands up in the air. I strongly suspect she decided today that I’m a lost cause.

My best friend is married, and happily so, for which I thank God. I adore her husband, and I adore them together. They’re approaching their 10th anniversary, if I’m doing the math right, and I am constantly grateful that he came into her life. A couple of years ago she told me that marriage is “the most amazing thing in the world”.

I’m happy that she is happy. But her brand of happiness is not my brand of happiness, and I worry that when we get together in person next, I’m going to be subjected to a long lecture (or possibly a rant) about how my standards are too high, or I need to get over this fear of relationships, or that I am going to end up an old maid. As much as I love my best friend, I don’t think she understands what it means to be single at heart.

Of course, I do test her patience from time to time. I tried that dating thing a few years ago for about three days, which was when she told me how amazing marriage is. Then I did it again this year. I’m going to promise this was the last time, unless he literally shows up with a string of thirsty camels and a nose ring, but I’m not sure even that will convince her that I’m not just holding out for something better.

I call myself a writer. I claim I can put into words what other people can’t. And yet I haven’t figured out a way to explain my lifelong singleness to someone who has known me for more than half my life.

I don’t know who I’m more disappointed in right now, me or her. She didn’t respond to my statement that I don’t want romance, which makes me think she doesn’t understand my desire to be single. But I can’t make myself understood, which makes me think I’m worse at this writing thing than I thought.

I’m a huge fan of the show Chicago Fire. A few episodes back, a character facing a possibly life-changing decision was talking to his father. This character, Severide, was thinking about leaving Rescue Squad, and he was worried about what the other people in his life would think. His father gave him a piece of advice that has been resounding in my head ever since. He told Severide to disappoint his girlfriend, to disappoint the other firefighters, even to disappoint his father–but never to disappoint himself.

I’m not saying that a single person has no responsibilities except to herself. As a single person, I have responsibilities to my friends. I have responsibilities to my coworkers. I have responsibilities to my parents. I have responsibilities to my brothers and sisters in Christ. I have responsibilities to the rest of society, to a certain degree. But as a single person, I have only one person to live with–me.

Today, I think I disappointed my best friend. And her opinion means a lot to me. But in the end, it’s about living with myself.

It feels weird. I reconnected with an old friend recently, and he happened to be unattached. We used to have a Thing, way back when, which we never acted on. He suggested we give it a go, and I said sure.

Thing is…I’m not the same person I was back then. He isn’t, either, but I’ve changed in one significant way that he hasn’t–I no longer feel the need or, generally, the desire for romantic companionship.

This doesn’t bode well for the relationship.

I’ve said before that singleness isn’t a gift, at least not in the way so many Christians assume. But through this most recent experience, I’ve come to realize that God does call certain people to be single, insofar as He grants certain people the particular grace and strength to face life without a helpmeet. And I’m pretty sure I’m one of those people.

I’m not saying it’s a good or a bad thing. It’s just a thing. I don’t want to imply that people who need romantic partners are weak, needy, or less spiritual. People who need romantic partners are just different from people who don’t need them. And I certainly don’t mean I don’t need anyone in my life. I do. I have my family of parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I have my single-style family (we need an official term for that) of my close friends, sisters of my heart. And there’s definitely a place in my life for this old friend/would-be-boyfriend, if he wants it. But that place, I regret to say, isn’t as my partner or spouse.

I love the time we spend together. I enjoy talking to him and bouncing ideas off him. I enjoy listening to his perspective on things (which is often, but not always, a lot different from mine). I like just hanging out and being around him. But I don’t want to take it any further than this. I don’t want hugs or kisses, hand-holding or flowers, and I definitely don’t want to go home with him every night.

Not that I’m not attracted to him. I am. But…

Well, I just don’t have my heart in it.

I’m not looking forward to having this conversation with him. The line, “It’s not you, it’s me,” is so trite and over-used no one believes it anymore. But it’s true in this case. Telling him, “I believe God has called me to singleness,” sounds too holier-than-thou and, frankly, like a cop-out. The one good thing about this is how open I was with him from the beginning. I told him I hadn’t dated in a long time and hadn’t had any desire to date. I told him I wasn’t sure if I was cut out to be in a relationship of this type. I told him I need a lot of me time and my own space. And he was good enough to listen, and he took me at my word. But I suspect he got his hopes up a little more than he should have.

For now, I’ll keep praying about it and see what guidance God grants me the next time we’re together.

Any thoughts, friends? What would you do in my situation? What would you want to hear in his place?

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Meerkat09 left a great comment on my last post–in fact, Single People Are Not the Enemy received a LOT of thoughtful comments; it’s obviously a hot topic! But I want to talk about Meerkat’s comment today.

Meerkat pointed out that married Christians might not realize what they’re doing when they deny us friendship, because “Singles don’t get to be friends with Christians of the opposite gender.”

It’s a sad but true phenomenon in many Christian circles that friendship between a man and a woman is seen as something dangerous. I don’t know if it’s just a case of too many Christians having seen When Harry Met Sally a few too many times or what, but right up there with belief in the triune nature of God and the resurrection of Jesus seems to be the “fact” that women and men can’t be friends without sex getting in the way.

What drives me crazy about this idea is that it isn’t an honest reflection of the Bible. Men and women in the Bible are friends and counselors to each other in many situations without sex getting in the way. Let’s look at a few:

Deborah and Barak (Judges 4 & 5)

Deborah was a prophetess, one of Israel’s judges. She passed along God’s order for Barak son of Abinoam to wage war on Sisera. What was Barak’s response? “If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” Incidentally, this has always been one of my favorite stories in the First Testament, not only because a woman was judge, but also because of the gruesomely awesome way in which Sisera was defeated: while he was running from Barak, a woman gave him shelter in her tent. Sisera fell asleep, and the woman drove a tent stake through his head. Pretty badass.

In any event, Barak thought highly enough of Deborah that he wouldn’t go to war without her advice. When they won, they sang a long victory song together. Then Deborah went back to her husband Lappidoth and Israel “had rest for forty years.”

Paul and Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:1-3, Romans 16:3-5)

Paul met Priscilla and her husband Aquila in Corinth. They were tentmakers like Paul, so he stayed at their home and they worked together. Priscilla and Aquila were such good friends and helpers to Paul that when he left Corinth for Syria, they went with him. Later, when Paul is sending his greetings to them in Romans, he writes, “Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus, and who risked their necks for my life…” That’s a pretty strong friendship!

Paul and Lydia (Acts 14: 14-15, 40)

Lydia was probably a wealthy woman, because she was a dealer of purple cloth, and purple was the color of royalty in those days, a very expensive dye. When Paul’s little band of missionaries got to Philippi, Lydia heard Paul’s preaching and was baptized. She invited Paul’s group to come and stay at her home. While they were there, Paul (that rabble-rouser) drove a demon out of a slave girl and got himself arrested. Lydia could have turned away from these dangerous missionaries, but she was a true friend to them. When Paul was released from prison, he went back to Lydia’s home to encourage them before he left town.

Jesus and Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42, John 11:1-45)

Let’s not leave out our Savior when talking about friendships between men and women! Jesus was incredibly liberal when it came to attitudes towards women at that time. He allowed Mary to sit at his feet and learn, which was a role usually reserved for men. We know Jesus was also friends with Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus, but look at how Luke 10:38 puts it: “he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.” It doesn’t say Jesus stayed with Lazarus, but with Martha. Maybe Lazarus lived with Martha, but that isn’t indicated.

Later, when Lazarus was sick, John says, “though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus”, which I find telling–it lists Martha first. Maybe Martha was the head of that family, or perhaps her friendship with Jesus was stronger than the others. Martha’s faith in Jesus was so strong that, even when Jesus let Lazarus die, she knew said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Then she went on to confess she believed Jesus was the Messiah.

So often all we remember about Martha is that she was too busy to sit and listen to Jesus during one of his visits. But I think the evidence is there that she had a strong relationship with Jesus, both as a friend and as her Savior.

Jesus and Mary Magdalene (Luke 8:1-3, John 20:11-18)

If we listen to Andrew Lloyd Webber or Dan Brown, Mary Magdalene was in love with Jesus. But what the Bible shows us is a relationship far more complicated and inspiring. Jesus cast seven demons out of Mary, and she believed in him and followed him. Mary is one of several women who are referenced multiple times in the Gospels as being active in Jesus’ ministry. In fact, her friendship with Jesus was so important that she was one of the first to see him after his resurrection.

Okay, this is getting long, so I’ll stop here, but I think my point is made. The Bible provides models of friendships between the sexes, and the church is remiss in ignoring this important type of relationship. The fact is, men and women think in different ways, and both perspectives are important when you’re trying to achieve wisdom. After all, God created humankind in His image–“male and female He created them”–so both perspectives are necessary.

One of my friends lost someone he’d grown up with. They’d gone to the same church since childhood. They’d attended school together. They read the same kinds of books and watched the same kinds of movies, and even double-dated at times. Sure, he’d had a crush on her at one point, and at a totally different point she’d had a crush on him. But that was a decade in the past, and their friendship had never had a basis in romantic or sexual attraction.

It came to a tragic end when his lifelong friend said I do…to some other man. A man who felt threatened by my buddy’s presence in his wife’s life. Suddenly my friend found himself not only reduced to a brief smile in passing at church, but someone whose occasional phone calls or emails didn’t get answered. Shortly after the wedding, he learned she had de-friended him on Facebook.

This story is tragic.

Listen up, married people: Single people are not the enemy.

We’re not out to steal your spouse. We’re not trying to wreck your marriage. And if you’re too insecure to cope with the fact that your spouse wants to be friends with someone of the opposite sex, that isn’t my problem. It’s yours. And you need to deal with it, because I don’t deserve to have a friendship ripped away from me because you have a problem.

Your Insecurity =/= My Fault

Why did Mr. Insecure feel the need to end his wife’s friendship? I can think of a lot of reasons, none of which are my buddy’s fault:

– Mr. Insecure thinks his wife likes Friendly Guy better.

– Mr. Insecure is afraid his wife will leave him for Friendly Guy.

– Mr. Insecure resents the time his wife spends with Friendly Guy.

But is ending the friendship a good response? I say no, and the number one reason is this: ending the wife’s friendship with Friendly Guy is not going to address the obvious issues with her marriage to Mr. Insecure.

Instead of ending the friendship, why didn’t Mr. Insecure confront the reasons he felt threatened by the friendship? Why didn’t he spend more time strengthening his marriage instead of destroying the friendship? Why didn’t he attempt to cultivate a friendship with Friendly Guy, which would not only strengthen Mr. Insecure’s marriage, but also possibly bless him and Friendly Guy both?

Sure, it’s easy to blame the single friend. But it isn’t honest, and it isn’t effective.

Facebook and eHarmony Aren’t Killing Your Marriage

Sure, there are wives who reconnect with old flames on Facebook and divorce their husbands to pursue some fantasy. There are guys who set up secret eHarmony profiles to meet one-night-stands despite being married. Guess what? That sort of thing happened before the internet existed. It’s just the methods that have changed.

I read an interesting article today on the Atlantic website. Apparently some guy blames online dating sites for the way he can’t get a woman to settle down…ignoring the fact that he doesn’t put her happiness ahead of his own, doesn’t seem to care about his credit score or career, and wants to spend all his time watching sports and drinking beer. Thankfully, someone who obviously has a much clearer idea of how adult relationships work wrote a response, pointing out the flaws in the argument. Maybe it’s not online dating that’s the problem, buddy. Maybe, just maybe, the problem is you.

Jesus put it another way: “Look to the plank in your own eye before removing the speck in your brother’s eye.”

Single People Aren’t Predators Looking for Marriages to Break Up.

No, I’m not actively looking for a spouse. But when I’m attracted to a guy who seems interesting, the first thing I do is check that left hand. If he’s wearing a ring, he’s automatically off-limits. That’s just how it works. Sure, there are people out there who don’t care. But I’m sick and tired of married people assuming the worst about me because of their own fears.

Think about this logically. If I’m looking for love, which is easier–to find someone who’s available and try to catch his interest, or to find someone who has already made an emotional and expensive commitment to someone else, which I must first sabotage and dissolve in order for me to experience my own version of marital bliss? Frankly, I’m just too damn lazy to try to break up someone’s marriage. Besides, who wants all that drama? Divorce is ugly. Especially if there are kids involved.

Your man may be great, but no one is worth me going to all that effort.

Not to mention…and I know this may be hard to believe, but…single people with ethics do actually exist.

The Real Question

So here’s my question: Why do people think married folks and single folks can’t be friends?

Jesus was a single guy, and he hung out with people like Peter, who had a mother-in-law, so obviously had a wife. Paul was a single guy, and he named Priscilla and Aquila as some of his closest friends. Yet people in the church seem to think a friendship between a single person and a married person is an infidelity just waiting to happen.

I think this is hypocritical, and I think it’s frankly dangerous. If you don’t address the real threats to marriage–things like married partners not putting each other first, married partners not talking honestly with each other, married partners not honoring Christ in their marriage–you’re not just hurting a single person who has lost a friend. You might just be giving up on that marriage before it really gets started.

*

As a postscript, I’m going to fast forward my buddy’s story ten years. After a decade of ups and downs, including a lengthy separation period and marital counseling and lots of heartache, Mr. Insecure and his wife divorced…even though Friendly Guy hadn’t been involved in the woman’s life since she said “I do.”

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 3,600 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 6 years to get that many views.

Some of the comments are killing me. People are telling this happy, confident single woman to “get over yourself” or telling her no one assumes she is defective because she’s still single.

Give me a break, people. Just because you married at 20 and never had anyone assume you were defective doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Just because you’ve never been asked, “So when are you going to settle down and get married?” doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Just because no one has ever told you you’re too picky or too self-sufficient or too shy doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

I’ve had people say such things to me and assume such things about me. It gets tiresome. It can also be hurtful. No matter how happy and confident you are, no matter how much you generally enjoy being single, you can still have your feelings hurt when so many people assume something’s wrong with you.

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Today I want to address one of my pet peeves: Christians who throw hissy fits about “keeping Christ in Christmas.”

Everyone’s received one of those email forwards that talks about boycotting places that sell “holiday trees” or wish people “happy holidays” at this time of year. My Facebook feed today had the classic Ben Stein’s holiday confessions, only this year it’s aimed at the White House, where they’re apparently calling them holiday trees. (For the scoop on Ben Stein, please reference the Snopes page. He did say a lot of what’s attributed to him, but it isn’t about holiday trees or the Obamas.)

I get that we, as Christians, should be concerned about Christ being shut out of our celebrations. But I think we’re going about this wrong, for a number of reasons.

What is a holiday? Merriam-Webster’s first definition of it is holy day. Get that? People who say “Happy holidays” are really wishing you a “Happy Holy Day.” They’re not pushing Christ out. They’re acknowledging that Christ’s birth is a Holy Day.

There are a lot of holidays happening this time of year. Not just Christmas, but also Thanksgiving, St. Andrew’s Day, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, St. Stephen’s Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day. Maybe people aren’t heathens, they’re just efficient and want to cover as many holidays as possible.

Jesus Christ probably wasn’t born on December 25, anyway. We all know this. It’s been documented all kinds of places. Go do a Google search. The point is, we’ve just arbitrarily chosen December 25 as the day we celebrate. What does it matter if some people don’t agree with us?

What was it the angels told the shepherds when they appeared to announce Jesus’ birth? Oh yeah, “peace on earth”. The spirit of Christmas is one of redemption and peace. Not one of strife and anger. Are we really honoring the spirit of Christmas by petty bickering about what we call it?

How many people do you think you’re going to reach for Christ by arguing with them about the name of Christmas?

I think we’d all be better off if we spent more time honoring Christ and the spirit of Christmas by expressing love, joy, peace, and goodwill (i.e. tolerance) toward others.

You want to keep Christ in Christmas? Go out and buy a homeless guy a pair of shoes and a meal.

You want to keep Christ in Christmas? Stop giving your family expensive and unnecessary gifts, and go out to feed the hungry.

You want to keep Christ in Christmas? Visit the sick and imprisoned in His name.

I agree, we should keep Christ in Christmas. We should keep the Holy in Holidays. We just need to rethink how we’re going to go about it.